


House and Home

by fractualized



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Home Repairs, M/M, Mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractualized/pseuds/fractualized
Summary: Bruce asks John to help him take care of some household tasks.
Relationships: John Doe/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 95





	House and Home

**Author's Note:**

> Last of the anonymous requests on Tumblr.

John looked at the array of items Bruce had laid out on the dining room table with… concern. Yup, that's what he was feeling.

"You said you wanted to take the day off," he said slowly to jog Bruce's memory. He gestured to the toolbox, spray bottles, assorted gloves, and other unfun items. "This is all... work."

Bruce shrugged. "I told you to wear something you didn't mind getting dirty."

John had to dig deep in his dresser for that, finding loose pants and a t-shirt that were just as plain as what Bruce was wearing.

"I thought that meant going to the park," John said, "to throw around a football or something."

"Do we own a football?" Bruce asked.

It was John's turn to shrug.

"Are you even interested in football?"

John dismissively waved his hand. "Just explain."

Bruce picked up a hammer from the table and gave it a flip. "Alfred took care of all the house maintenance, and now that he's gone, I've let too many things fly under my radar."

"Okay? Hire people."

"I have for a lot, but Alfred did plenty of tasks himself. It's good mental exercise, a switch from routine."

John didn't find that argument convincing, but Bruce looked so eager. "Sure, I guess."

"We'll get whatever you want for dinner tonight," Bruce promised, "as a reward for our hard work."

John clapped his hands. "Oh, on Amusement Mile, they're doing that dinner-in-the-sky thing again! On the ferris wheel!"

"You got it."

Alright, a day of chores for a night of romance was a fair trade. "So what's first?"

* * *

Down in the scullery, Bruce sat on the floor with his top half inside the open cabinet beneath the sink. Tools and tape for a dripping pipe sat outside the open door. John stood near and waited to be told what to do next.

"Alright," Bruce said, voice echoing slightly, "so with the main water supply off, I can start right in."

"Roger that!" John said. "Proceed."

He heard the squeak of Bruce unscrewing something, just before a clunk and then a rushing spray as cold water shot out from the cabinet. It hit John's calves and pooled on the floor. Bruce cursed, kicking his legs.

"Wrench!" Bruce shouted, throwing out his hand. "Wrench!"

John picked up the tool and thrust it into the cabinet. He caught a glimpse of Bruce trying to block the flood with his hand before he grabbed the wrench. John stepped back and clamped his hands over his mouth to soften his giggles while listening to more squeaks and Bruce's grunts. The spray finally stopped, and with a deep exhale, Bruce tossed the wrench onto the floor. He emerged from the cabinet completely soaked.

"Did you forget a step?" John snickered.

Bruce wasn't mad, but he wasn't laughing. "Are you sure you turned off the main?"

"Yeah!" John said, lifting a hand and turning an invisible valve one way, then the other. "Righty tighty, lefty loo… Oh." He looked at Bruce's drenched clothes again. "Ohhhhhh."

Bruce sighed. "It's just water. I'll change after we're done here."

Or rather, after Bruce was done. He didn't ask John to do anything else for the pipe.

* * *

They went up to the library next. First they cleaned the windows with glass spray and paper towels to let the full brightness of daylight hit the shelves. Then they laid a sheet over the middle of the Victorian rug and carried over two wooden desks from opposite sides of the room. 

"I have someone come in for most of the antique furniture," Bruce said as they set the second desk down, "but considering the significance of these pieces–"

"Your parents!" John chirped.

He was up in the library pretty often, checking out the early printings of books on different mythologies as well as Gotham historical records. Bruce spent his reading time in the cave, so John would imagine Martha's ghost at her desk and ramble to her about the neat things he read.

He didn't talk to Thomas, who was always too busy plotting.

Bruce nodded. "Both desks were passed down from the first generation of Waynes who lived here. I thought it would be nice to handle them myself for once."

"Let's get to it," John agreed.

Bruce took his mom's desk, and John took Thomas's. They wiped off any dust, and then there was the bulk of the job: the wax. Bruce had a little tin of it with a soft cloth for each of them. They used the cloths to scoop up a bit of wax and rub it into the wood.

While they worked, John played pop music on his phone and took mini dance breaks every few minutes. It helped pass the time, though he did like the way the wax added to the shine of the wood. After finishing the legs, he wondered if the cloth was getting too waxy, given how much of the stuff he'd used. He switched to a clean paper towel and ran it in circles on the desktop, starting from the nearest corner.

The music burst into another bopping chorus, and John straightened up to bop his hips with it– right into the desk, sending the wax tin sliding off the edge.

"Look out!" Bruce exclaimed.

John lurched forward and managed to catch the tin before it could hit the floor and spill past the edge of the sheet onto the rug. He held the tin up with the same hand holding the towel.

"Haha, whew! Not a drop lost!"

Bruce's relieved laughter dissolved into a blank look. "Where's the cloth I gave you?"

"Huh?" John looked at the paper towel. "Oh, I thought I'd switch to a fresh one."

"Paper towels are too rough for jobs like this," Bruce said, coming over.

"They're not sandpaper," John giggled.

Bruce frowned as he inspected the corner John had been working on. John peered closer, too, and then he could see them, the shallow circular scratches in the finish.

"Oh, uhhhh…" John reached for the soft rag. "It'll probably buff out if I go back to this?"

Bruce shook his head, still with that frown. "I think I should hand this back over to the professionals. They'll know more about it."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Hey." Bruce gripped John's shoulder and smiled. "It's no big deal. This thing has got plenty of other scratches in it."

John smiled back weakly. "Right, sure."

Bruce always said John's mistakes were no big deal.

* * *

There was (probably) no way John could get weeding wrong. He and Bruce had donned gloves and started on the end of the garden closest to the pool. John kept glancing over at Bruce to make sure they were pulling up the same kind of stuff, and after a while he felt more confident. The pretty blossoms stayed, of course, along with the leafy green plants, while all the ratty looking intruders had to go in the big bucket between the two men.

Bruce got up from his knees with a grunt. "I'm gonna run to the bathroom," he said as he pulled off his gloves. "You okay finishing this plot?"

"Yessirree!" John said with a salute.

Bruce went inside, and John went back to work with gusto. It didn't take long to finish. He surveyed his work proudly with his hands on his hips, thinking about how tidy the garden would look with the mulch down.

He figured he might as well start on the next plot. And hoo boy, did that have some ratty looking weeds, bright green, sure, but with jagged leaves. John yanked it all out by the roots.

He was done by the time Bruce's shadow fell over him. He looked up.

"Heya, buddy! Look how much I got done while you were slacking."

Bruce had another uneasy look on his face as he looked from the empty dirt patch to the overflowing bucket. John's stomach sank.

"Those weren't weeds," Bruce said.

"Oh, jeez!" John examined the leaves hanging from the bucket. "Don't tell me it's poison ivy or something." He examined his arms for signs of a rash.

"No, uh, it's just parsley. If Al really wanted to preserve it, he should've taken it with him, right?"

There was something else in Bruce's tone. John narrowed his eyes at him. "And?"

Bruce glanced away. "And what?"

" _And?_ "

"... I mean, okay, my mother planted it, but–"

"Augh!"

* * *

"It's really fine, John. You and I barely cook. I tell the gardeners to take as much of the herbs as they want."

"Your mother's prized herbs."

"I think they were more about convenience than anything."

"Yet still a part of her legacy in this house, which I'm ruining."

"You haven't ruined anything. I'd trust you to do this right now."

"This" being fixing the toilet down by the conservatory. It had been running for a couple weeks, probably longer. They used that bathroom so rarely that there weren't even hand towels hanging on the bar on the wall.

"I'd probably make it explode," John replied, "and cover this room with who knows what."

Bruce had switched to latex gloves, and he fiddled around the bottom of the drained tank. "All it needs is a new flapper… like so." He hooked the flapper's chain to the lever attached to the flusher, then bent down to turn the supply pipe back on.

John watched the tank refill. "If I did that, the water would've shot in the air."

"That's not what it's designed to do."

Bruce pushed the flusher, and with a whoosh, the tank emptied again, the water swirling around the bowl and down the drain. After about a minute, the tank filled back up, and the toilet stopped running as intended.

"See?" John said, propping his elbow on the end of the towel bar. He gestured with his opposite hand. "You did beautifully without me."

The bar suddenly jerked downward, taking a hunk of the wall with it as it clanged to the floor.

* * *

The central stairway in the entrance hall, with two sets of stairs leading to the midpoint landing, had a wobbly rail on the right. Bruce was carefully stabilizing it with thin nails at the bases of several balusters.

John sat on the floor several feet away, hugging his knees and trying not to make sudden movements.

"I could really use someone to tell me if this looks tilted," Bruce said.

"Someone careful," John grumbled.

"You don't need to be careful to look."

"Face it. I don't deserve to eat tacos on a ferris wheel."

"You will always deserve that."

John scowled. "Don't patronize me. You trusted me to help take care of your family home, and all I've done is wreck it."

Bruce stopped mid-hammer and looked back with a frown. "What?"

"Like, woo, I was good at mopping up water, but–"

"No, John." Bruce put the hammer down and walked over. He crouched at John's side. "I asked you to help take care of _our_ home."

John stared back skeptically.

"I wanted you to feel– to _know_ that this is your house, too"– Bruce smiled– "because it is." He reached over and lifted John's chin up. "You and I live here now. So we get to fix it, and we get to wreck it, historical value be damned."

"Oh, buddy!" John rose on his knees and wrapped Bruce in a hug. "You always make me feel at home."

"Good. I don't want that to change," Bruce said, hugging John back before pulling him to his feet. "And keep in mind that tearing out plants or messing up walls doesn't even approach how badly my parents' actions tainted this place."

"Ha, that is in a different league." John sighed. "Still, l wish more things had gone right."

"Hey, this looks pretty good, doesn't it?" Bruce said, walking back to the stairs and slapping the bottom post.

At the sound of a resounding crack, Bruce jerked back. The railing tilted, from the landing to the bottom, and fell to the floor with a hollow bang.

Both men stared for a moment. John tried to stifle a laugh, but it escaped as a snort.

"Alright, well..." Bruce looked at John. "I'll call the handyman tomorrow. Let's get dressed for dinner."  
  
  



End file.
